April 24, 2014 -- International Viewpoint -- On the eve of April 25, 1974, Portuguese society was
smouldering from contradictions accumulated in half a century of
dictatorship. At the heart of these contradictions was a war that lasted
thirteen years, to hold on to the African colonies of Angola,
Mozambique, Guinea, Cape Verde and Sao Tome and Principe. This conflict
conditioned the whole of national life, because of the social suffering
caused by the mobilisation of two hundred thousand men, a tenth of the
working population (a human cost equivalent to twice that of Vietnam),
because of the wave of migration driven by hunger and the war, and
because of the impossibility of a military solution, the only one
contemplated by the regime.

Mark Bergfeld: Across Europe we have witnessed
three strands of resistance to the Troika (the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank) : mass strikes by workers,
youth revolts like the indignad@s, and electoral revolts such as SYRIZA in Greece, Front de Gauche in France, and the CUP in Catalonia. In Portugal we have witnessed the former two but haven't seen an upsurge in support for the Left Bloc or the Communist Party for that matter. Why hasn't the Portuguese left been able to take advantage of a favourable situation?

There will undoubtedly be many replies to Ford
from people who are directly involved in politics in Britain, which I am
not at present. However, an important part of Ford’s argument is to try
and demonstrate that the political forces to the left of social
democracy in Europe don’t amount to much, either politically or in terms
of their support. In doing so, frankly, he paints a picture which has
little relation to reality. This is what I want to take up [1].

According to rally coordinators, some 500,000 protesters filled
the Lisbon boulevard leading to the Finance Ministry on March 2. Many chanting "It's time for the government
to go!" and "Screw the Troika, we want our lives back", referring
to the lenders from the European Commission, European Central Bank
and International Monetary Fund.

Introduction by Dick
Nichols, European correspondent,Green Left Weekly, based in Barcelona

Delegate votes during the Left Bloc's eighth national convention. Photo from www.bloco.org.

By Dick Nichols,
Lisbon

November 18, 2012 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- A spectre is
haunting Portugal ― the spectre of Greece and of Syriza, its radical left party. All the powers of neoliberal Europe, led by
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, have entered into an unholy alliance to
exorcise this spectre.

Accompanied by
representatives of German big business, Merkel ran the gauntlet of protesters
in Lisbon for six hours on November 12. She congratulated Portugal’s Prime
Minister Pedro Passos Coelho for his “courage” in applying austerity (a
“success story”) and urged the country’s most unpopular political leader to
stick to his guns.

May 22, 2011 -- Green Left Weekly -- When the 548 delegates to the seventh national convention of
Portugal’s Left Bloc came together in a vast sports hall in Lisbon over
May 7-8, they had two big questions to answer. The first was what alternative should they propose at the June 5, 2011,
Portuguese elections to the €78 billion (about $103 billion) “rescue
package” negotiated between the European Union, the European Central Bank
and the International Monetary Fund (the “troika”) and the Socialist Party
(PS) government of Prime Minister Jose Socrates?

The second was how to build greater unity among all those forces
opposed to austerity — representing millions of Portuguese — so that a
government of the left becomes thinkable in a country used to a
back-and-forth shuffle of PS and Social Democratic Party (PDS)
administrations?

Portugal’s Left Bloc has achieved a major breakthrough in the last
five months. It polled nearly 11% and 10% respectively in the recent
European and parliamentary legislative elections in June and September 2009. For a party that is firmly established outside of left
social democracy this is a major achievement. How did it happen?

Its success is owed to a combination of objective and subjective
factors. The objective factors are rooted in Portugal’s 20th
century history while the subjective factors are linked to how the Left
Bloc was formed and how it operates and engages with people in
Portugal. The left in Britain and particularly in England can learn
from the development and practice of the Left Bloc.